May is National Asparagus Month

May is asparagus month, so I thought I'd re-post one of my favorite plant profile videos for one of my favorite foods! What's not to love about Asparagus? It is perennial and so easy to grow -- practically set-it-and-forget-it! It tastes great raw or cooked. And, most interesting of all, it makes your pee smell funky -- at least mine does after consuming it. 

Here is how to grow asparagus along with a few extra fun facts about this unique edible plant. (BTW, if you have any favorite asparagus recipes, please share them in the comments below.) 

Nothing says, "SPRING!" like fresh asparagus. With no real work on my part, I am able to get a decent harvest of asparagus from my community garden plot. The only thing this perennial vegetable really requires is patience.

Having to hold off on harvesting for three years from the initial planting date was a real test of my will power, but the wait is worth it. They are so tender fresh from the garden that they only need a quick blanching to prepare them.

To plant them, buy asparagus crowns (roots) via mail-order or from your local garden center. Plant them in a trench about 6 to 12 inches deep and a foot wide in a sunny spot in your garden. Add in some organic compost when re-filling the hole and then keep the area well-mulched.

Let the plants go through their growth cycle for two years without picking any so they gain strength and get well-established. In the third year, you can finally selectively harvest some spears by grasping them near the ground to bend them and they will naturally snap off at their weakest point.

At the beginning of May, stop harvesting and let the asparagus spears grow. They need the tall foliage and recovery time to send energy back down to the developing roots. You will need to tie-up the long asparagus fronds in the summer with a bungee cord or string as they like to flop over.

 In the fall, the plant forms little red seed pods or "berries," The asparagus seeds can be collected, dried, and planted the next spring. Towards the end of autumn, the foliage starts to turn brown --cut it back and compost it. Then mulch the bed with an organic material like straw.

I let strawberries encroach in my asparagus bed as their surface-runners don't really interfere much with the asparagus roots, but you really should keep it weeded and free of other interloping plants.

By the way, “white” asparagus is the same plant as the regular green one. It is just deprived of sunshine so it can’t produce chlorophyll and turn green. To grow white asparagus, bury the spears in mounds -- adding a few inches of soil a little at time, leaving the very tips showing. Harvest by digging them out and cutting off the top growth.

Asparagus - You Can Grow That!

The profile video was produced by Washington Gardener Magazine.

Visuals by Khloe Quill
Audio by Kathy Jentz

 

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This post is part of the #GardenBloggersChallenge sponsored by Gardencomm for the month of May. You are invited to join in and can see more details at https://info.gardencomm.org/bloggerschallenge

Monday Thoughts: ​"When I harvest herbs, greens, or radishes from under snow cover in my own garden, I feel a small spark of connection to the boy my father was, and the grandmother I never knew."

​"When I harvest herbs, greens, or radishes from under snow cover in my own garden, I feel a small spark of connection to the boy my father was, and the grandmother I never knew."

~ Wendy Kiang-Spray

I am GardenComm

You may have heard me talk about GWA or the Garden Writers Association in the past. Recently, the organization re-branded to become GardenComm (https://gardencomm.org/). We are trying to get the word out that the organization is for everyone in the garden media world -- garden book authors, podcasters, photographers, radio hosts, bloggers, public relations professionals, newspaper columnists, speakers, etc. If you communicate about gardening, you should join up (or renew if you let your membership lapse in the past)! Feel free to use me as your referral!!!

This video was shot and edited by Alexa Silverberg at the Smithsonian-USBG Orchid Exhibit.

Discuss The Roots of My Obsession with WG Garden Book Club

For our next Garden Book Club selection, we will be reading: 

The Roots of My Obsession: Thirty Great Gardeners Reveal Why They Garden by Thomas C. Cooper

"Why do you garden? For fun? Work? Food? The reasons to garden are as unique as the gardener. The Roots of My Obsession features thirty essays from the most vital voices in gardening, exploring the myriad motives and impulses that cause a person to become a gardener. For some, it’s the quest to achieve a personal vision of ultimate beauty; for others, it’s a mission to heal the earth, or to grow a perfect peach. The essays are as distinct as their authors, and yet each one is direct, engaging, and from the heart."

Our Winter 2018-19 club meeting will be on Thursday, January 3 from 6:30-8pm at Soupergirl, located right next to the Takoma metro stop. Soupergirl offers soups for sale that are incredibly healthy. They are 100% plant-based, low salt, low fat, and most importantly, absolutely delicious, so plan to come a bit early to purchase and eat your dinner with the garden book club. 

Please RSVP to washingtongardener (at) rcn.com or at the book club event page at facebook.com/WashingtonGardenerMagazine, so we know how many chairs to reserve for our group.

The Washington Gardener Magazine's Garden Book Club is free and open to all. We meet quarterly on a weekday evening near a metro-accessible location in the DC-area. We will announce the details of each upcoming meeting about two months in advance. Please check back on this blog for schedule updates and announcements.

Want to read ahead? The next book club selections are:

• Spring 2019 - Cultivating Environmental Justice: A Literary History of U.S. Garden Writing by Robert S. Emmett

• Summer 2019 - Onward and Upward in the Garden by Katharine White

• Fall 2019 - The Seed Underground: A Growing Revolution to Save Food by Janisse Ray

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We are away at the Garden Writers Conference

The Washington Gardener Magazine blog, garden tip of the day, and most all our social media is on break as we attend the 2016 GWA Annual Conference & Expo. We aim to return inspired, refreshed, and renewed. You can follow along and virtually experience the conference using #GWA2016 on Twitter, Instagram, etc.

Meanwhile, while we are gone, enjoy some of our most popular past blog posts:

• Top 10 Hottest Gardeners in the DMV
• DC's Cherished Cherry Trees in Danger 
• 7 Stress-free Perennials that Work Hard for You in...
•  Garden Blogger Bloom Day BLING
• Wisteria, How I Love/Hate You

 PS If you are attend GWA2016 too, please say, 'Hi' and do come to my panel discussion "Eavesdrop of the Editors" and roundtable "Social Media: Beyond the Basics."

Discussing Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life by Marta McDowell at the next Washington Gardener Magazine Book Club Meeting

For our next Washington Gardener Magazine Book Club selection, we will be discussing: Beatrix Potter’s Gardening Life by Marta McDowell. The book club meeting will be held at the Takoma Park* Neighborhood Library, Washington, DC, in the TPK Meeting Room
on Thursday, July 30, from 6:30-8:00PM.

The library room allows food and drink and you may bring your dinner and/or snacks to share.

The book club meetings are FREE and open to anyone who would like to attend. 

Please RSVP to "WG Book Club" at WashingtonGardener@rcn.com. I will be limiting attendance to 20. If you need to cancel, let me know ASAP so we can give your spot to someone else, should we have a wait-list. 
 

I will announce the date for the next book club meeting's date and location after each previous meeting. We will meet roughly once each quarter/season.

If you like to read ahead, the book club selections for Fall 2015 will be:

~ Teaching the Trees by Joan Maloof 

*NOTE: This is the library on the DC side of the border, NOT the City of Takoma Park, Maryland town location.

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Support the Garden Media Before it is GONE ~ Washington Gardener Enews ~ August 2014 issue

The Washington Gardener Enews ~ August 2014 issue is now out. It was emailed as a PDF to all Washington Gardener Magazine current subscribers. It is also posted and archived online at: 

http://issuu.com/washingtongardener/docs/wgenews-aug14/0

Inside This Enews Issue:
• Back Issue Sale
• August-Sept To-Do List
• Magazine Excerpt: Eastern Yellow Jackets
• Latest Blog Links
• Local Garden Events Listings
• Support the Garden Media Before it is GONE!
• New ‘Velour’ Wave Petunias
• Reader Contest to Win Passes to the Morris Arboretum

Subscribe to Washington Gardener Magazine today to have the monthly enewsletter sent to your inbox as a PDF several days before it is available online.

Video Wednesday: Garden Writers Get Happy!

I'm just back for the annual Garden Writers Symposium -- held this year in Pittsbugh, PA
I am exhausted from the 18+ hour ideas, but also inspired and most of all HAPPY to have such a wonderful week with my garden communication colleagues.
Take a look at this flashmob video we filmed there at Schenley Plaza.

Don't forget to PLANT SOMETHING!

Video Wednesday: Agastache, a Native Plant with Bling

 

Stephanie Cohen, “The Perennial Diva,” spoke on "Native Plants with Bling" at the US Botanic Garden in Washington, DC, on May 9, 2014, National Public Gardens Day. This short video is on Agastache, a great plant for attracting pollinators to your garden and it is very appropriate that I'm finally getting a chance to edit and post this during National Pollinator Week.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: Sample Plants

For this month's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day share, I thought I'd take a photo of one of the many sample plants that I get set to review as a professional garden communicator. This tropical hisbiscus bloom opened up today and it is 'Spin the Bottle' in the HibisKiss Viva plants collection from Floragem.

I get set a number of plants every year. Some are drop-dead gorgeous, like this one. In the last few years I have had some real traffic-stoppers (literally) and have enjoyed trialing many new echinacea, coreopsis, dozens of heuchera, etc.


Every year in Washington Gardener Magazine I share a "New Plants and Picks" spread and almost all of these choices come from the plants I've personally trialed and know work well for us in the Mid-Atlantic US. I also enjoy sharing new plant discoveries that I know are coming to market soon in the "Spotlight" column of the monthly Washington Gardener Enewsletter.

The only plant I think I have to say "enough!" to are all the bare-root roses. I do not want to sound ungrateful, but there IS a such thing as too much of a good thing. I just don't have one-inch left in my garden in a spot with the full sun that they need. Recently, I visited a convent in Washington, DC, while on the Brookland House and Garden Tour and I noticed they had a half-acre or so of clear, sun-filled space just crying out for planting. So I'll be taking any more I get down to donate there.

The majority of trial plants I receive are like the annual above. I have plenty of containers to stuff annuals and move around into available sun spots... and when those spots are gone, I start hanging and stacking them up on any wall or fence space that I can, so there is always room for more of them.

What is blooming in your garden today?

Video Wednesday: MANTS Report

Garden writer pal, Doug Oster of the Digging with Doug blog and the Pittsburgh Gazette newspaper, explores the Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show (MANTS) in Baltimore, MD. This gives you a good overview of the show, but it is so vast that he could only share a bit of what you would see there. It is a trade-only event that tales place each winter for the garden centers, designers, and landscapers to see what is new, shop for their customers, place retail orders, and to network.